September housing price data follows NAR price trend: higher prices

In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s second update discusses the Case-Shiller and FHFA price series.

Last week NAR released October sales and price data and in the blog summary accompanying the release, we used NAR data to predict today’s home price releases from Case-Shiller and the Federal Housing Finance Authority (FHFA).

NAR estimated a 12 to 13 percent price gain from Case-Shiller and a 7 to 8 percent gain as reported by the FHFA. Today’s data from Case-Shiller reports a gain of 13.3 percent from a year ago and FHFA data show that prices rose 8.5 percent from a year ago, suggesting that the timeliness of NAR’s data makes it a valuable market leading indicator.

Digging deeper into today’s data releases, we see that the Case-Shiller metro areas with the biggest price gains are in the West, just as the NAR data shows the biggest price gains in that region. All four metros that showed home prices with gains of 20% or more in the last year were in the West: Las Vegas (29.1%), San Francisco (25.7%), Los Angeles (21.8%), and San Diego (20.9%).

On a quarterly basis, the FHFA reports state-level price change data. In the 3rd quarter, 48 states and D.C. saw prices rise. From one year ago, all 50 states and D.C. saw prices increase. The map pictured below shows the intensity of annual price appreciation for each state. As seen in the NAR and Case-Shiller data, the largest gains were concentrated in the West, specifically in Nevada (25.2%) and California (22.8%).